James Rodríguez deal Real close

Operation James Rodríguez is making fast progress and in line with plans drawn out at Real Madrid on Monday 30th June during a meeting between Florentino Pérez, José Ángel Sánchez and Jorge Mendes. The steps to be followed during negotiations in order to make James Rodriguez’s dream move come true were fleshed out on the back of his sterling World Cup performances.

The player's agent had claimed that it would take an estimated ¤75m transfer fee to seal the deal. Given that the player does not have a release clause, the club needed to negotiate directly with Monaco.

That step has now been taken. Meetings have taken place in Madrid this week between the French club’s president, Dmitry Rybolovlev, and Real Madrid. The Russian tycoon went in high asking for an astronomical ¤115m initially. Following arduous negotiations in the two meetings, ‘Los Blancos’ managed to lower the asking price to ¤85m.